ALL Partners and CPA Staff of Audit Firms Need to be Accredited

Did you know that the Accountancy Law (Republic Act No. 9298) mandates that all partners of general professional partnership involved in public practice and the CPA staff of audit firms/partnerships are ALL required to be accredited with the PRC/BoA?.

Section 31 of RA 9298 provides that “individual CPAs, firms and partnerships of CPAs involved in the practice of public accountancy, including partners and staff members thereof, shal register with the Commission and Board, such registration to renewed every three years, xxxx.”

Accordingly, to put into place this unimplemented requirement of law, BoA Resolution 295-2015 was issued.

Pursuant to this Resolution, all partners and the CPA staff of all audit partnerships and firms including forensic auditing and accounting will have to file their application to as CPAs in public practice not later than June 30, 2016. Upon completion of the prescribed documents, they will each be given Certificates of Accreditation with unique numbers that will be linked to the audit partnership or firm that they are connected. They are also given until June 30, 2016 to complete their CPD requirements. For those with lacking CPD units at time of this accreditation, they will have to accomplish and submit a prescribed affidavit of undertaking with their application form.

“Those who file early before June 30, 2016 will be able to get their Certificate of Accreditation earlier than the rest who may defer their filing their applications near the June 30 deadline. Therefore, we encourage our affected CPAs to file as soon as possible so that they will not be affected by the “last minute” rush and hassle. Of course, all the affected CPAs should also ensure that they are able to complete their CPD units of 60 units within three years from date of filing of the application,” said Chairman Joel Tan-Torres.

“There will be a Question and Answer (Q&A) list that will be issued to address the implementation issues and questions. The Q & A that will be issued will clarify such issues as the procedure that those leaving, resigning or retiring from the audit partnership or firm that they are initially connected with at time of application will have to notify the PRC/BoA of this matter within a month of their separation. They also will have to notify the PRC/BoA of their new status or involvement within a month thereafter. There is no need for a new application but merely a notification will suffice,” said Chairman Tan-Torres.

A new BACC form will be used for the application for this affected CPAs.

Questions and issues on this resolution can be emailed to the BoA at boa.secretariat@gmail.com.

Notice: This article is published in cooperation with the Board of Accountancy Secretariat and permission was obtained to post this article in this website.

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